What I learned about the Finnish job market after being fired

At the end of 2016, I lost my job. I had been working for more than five years as a Community Manager in one of the leading Finnish game developers. The budget was tight, there had been some tensions about sales, and my position was not crucial to get other projects on the market — so I was relieved of my duties. I have nothing but good memories about the time I spent at the company (with the exclusion of the final bit, for obvious reasons), and it hurt to have to let it go.

What hurt more, though, was to discover what was waiting for me on the Finnish job market.

A premise: I’m currently employed, this is my tenth year in Finland, I own an apartment here, and I’m married to an exceptional Finnish person. If the weather weren’t so damn wet, I would have no significant complaint about Helsinki. I tell you more: sunny days in Finland are spectacular — we just need 300 more of them.

Unemployment Support

With that out of the way, let me explain what I went through after receiving my last salary. In all fairness, the bureaucracy here is reasonably efficient, but that didn’t help much in making me feel better about my newfound condition.

The first thing one needs to do is to communicate their new status, hence joining the army of people in need of monthly support. Luckily, I had paid my union fees, thus gaining the right to 80% of my previous salary for up to 500+ days. Not bad, except that I did…